Test Setup

How We Tested

As always, we did our best to deliver a clean set of benchmarks, with each test repeated three times, and an average of those results is what we’re reporting here. In the rare case where performance was inconsistent, we continued repeating the test until we obtained three results that were consistent.

The tests performed are a mixture of custom in-game time demos and manually-played sections, using FRAPS to record the average and minimum frame rates. We strive to not only record real-world performance you will actually see, but also present the results in a manner that is easy to digest.

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Following feedback from our readers, we've taken the opportunity to update our benchmarks and have re-tested all of the current generation cards that we've been able to get our hands on. We'll be adding older cards to the updated performance charts in the coming weeks. Descriptions of the benchmarks can be found on the individual pages for each one.

Regular readers will notice that we have switched our PSU to a higher wattage model (pictured below) to cater for the massive power draw when running two Ares II cards. Many thanks to Lepa for providing us with the sample. We also had to use a test bench rather than our usual case for the CrossFire tests, and thus comparable temperature results in this mode cannot be given.